Repetition of a Lie

Fresh country air? Well, no. Not since concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) have been popping up like fetid mushrooms all over my state - the state of Missouri – and in many other states across the country. Instead of mowed fields, freshly-turned earth and the pleasant smell of cows on a pasture resulting in sighs of contentment, all too often the odiferous country air stimulates gagging and retching.

Eventually, water quality and rural economics will be impacted, but the first, loudest and most enduring complaint about CAFOs is stink. While there are major problems with water quality, running family farmers off the land or making them serfs, and the tanking of the rural economy - I want to focus on air quality. Odor. Stink. Stink and odor are, of course, caused by many compounds – many of which are unhealthy such as the high levels of hydrogen sulfide and ammonia released by CAFOs.
Those who support the factory-like mega-operations, in which hogs, chickens, and cows are kept in confinement buildings with hundreds or even thousands of other critters, will point to “urban and suburban move ins” as those who complain. While that is seemingly a sound assertion and one that is embraced by the likes of Premium Standard “Farms”, Tyson’s, Cargill, the American Dairy Association, Smithfield, Fosters, and the Farm Bureau (which is nothing but a shill for agribusiness), that assertion doesn’t hold water.

Looking at the facts of the actual demographics in my state of Missouri - and this holds true for all states - there is no migration from urban to rural areas. The opposite is true. Urban and suburban counties in my state - such as Boone which contains the City of Columbia, Jasper (Joplin), St. Charles (St. Charles and St. Peter), Greene (Springfield), Jackson (Kansas City), Platte (north suburbs of Kansas City), and Buchanan (St. Joseph) – these urban or suburban areas are experiencing population increases ranging up to 6% since 2000, while rural counties are losing folks at about the same rate or, due to birth to death rates, are breaking even. It is no coincidence that in the counties where Smithfield-owned Premium Standard’s CAFOs are all over the place – Putnam, Sullivan, Mercer – population decreases are the norm.

Even in such places as McDonald County, where Big Chicken reigns supreme, the county has essentially broken even in population since 2000, and, according to the census statistics, there was NO in-migration. In all these counties, the rate of crime has increased dramatically, as has levels of poverty. Drive-by shootings, drug use and sales, child abuse, spouse abuse, teenage pregnancies - all of these are all too common in counties where agribusiness corporations have moved in. So not only does population go down, but crime goes up.

But never to be diverted by truth or facts, Big Ag advocates keep claiming that lawsuits are filed by “move ins” as if repetition of a lie somehow makes it a reality. It is not urban folks that are complaining and filing all the lawsuits; it is longtime rural residents. In the current cases about odor and harm to human health and the quality of life – over 200 against Premium Standard, it is farmers who have inherited the land from their fathers, who in turn inherited it from their fathers, who have done the filings. It is not unusual at all for the loudest complaints about the stink from giant hog, chicken and cattle operations to come from people who raise those same animals in more traditional and more sustainable ways.

It is not “animal agriculture” that is the cause of the big stink. No one complained about the neighbor’s hog lot or chicken house or dairy barn – it is industrial methods of raising farm animals – concentrated animal feeding operations - CAFOs.

As my FFA project while I was in High School, I raised hogs. Not many by today’s standards – I had about 12 or about 4.2 animal units. But, my mother insisted that the hogs be kept downwind of our house and our backyard. In addition to stinking up the house, any wet clothes hung on the line to dry ended up smelling like hog manure. Even my 12 hogs didn’t smell like a flower bed, but thousands of hogs create a gut-wrenching stink. Hog manure is particularly odiferous, and those living downwind from a few thousand hogs are overwhelmed by the stench.

5000 dairy cows don’t smell like roses, nor do several million laying hens.

But, to listen to the representatives of livestock organization, you would get the impression that any attempt by the State or Federal government to control odor is going to put all farmers out of business. This is, of course, patent nonsense and, in fact the opposite is true: if regulations are not imposed on BigAg, family farmers will be out of business – not able to compete with those who violate our federal laws and regulations by creating a stink and polluting the water.

While Premium Standard – now owned by Smithfield, previously owned by ContiGroup with Henry Kissinger a Board member - or Tysons or MOARK/Land O’ Lakes or Foster’s Chickens or Cargill may encounter some difficulties, it is likely that those entities have the wherewithal to install devices or to switch to methods that will keep their stink down to a level that is not horrifically offensive to their long time rural neighbors. Since that is likely to cut into the bottom line - aka profit margin, they won’t do it willingly.

However, no matter how loud and long the Pork Producers, the American Dairy Association and the Poultry Federation squeal, it is highly unlikely that independent diversified farmers would suffer from regulating the Big Boys. State and Federal laws and regulations are applicable to CAFOs of more than 1000 “animal units”.

An animal unit, the EPA standard of measurement, equals one steer of 1000 pounds. A hog is 2.5 animal units, a dairy cow is .75; it takes 30 laying hens to make 1 animal unit. Not many real farmers have 2500 hogs, or 750 dairy cows or 30000 laying hens. Agribusinesses do and so do their contract growers.

That is where state and federal laws and regulations should be targeted – to agribusiness corporations headed in Bentonville, Arkansas, or Omaha, Nebraska or Chicago, Illinois or Tokyo, Japan. Not to folks who have been on the farm for years and years.

I end where I started. Manure and urine from thousands of hogs, chickens and cows stink. It is longtime rural residents who object to this stink. Not urban “move ins”. No matter how many times an untruth is told, it is still a lie.

Big Ag does itself no favors by repeating this Big Lie. To paraphrase Shakespeare: “The fault is not in the stars, it is in you”.

Repetition does not equal reality.